


as fire loves innocence

by rudderless in an ocean of stars (ellieindelibly)



Series: until every fire is extinguished and every home is rebuilt [3]
Category: Batwoman (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Post 1x15, Character Study, Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Not Canon Compliant, POV Beth Kane, POV Kate Kane, Past Child Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, the kane sisters actually get to be sisters here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:26:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24072136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellieindelibly/pseuds/rudderless%20in%20an%20ocean%20of%20stars
Summary: Kate wakes up to the sounds of a choked scream, a dull thud, and the sight of Alice crumpled in a heap on the floor, limbs tangled in the blanket that she’d wrapped her in and sobbing so hard that it seems like her lungs might burst from the strain of it all.//The one in which the effects of fear toxin linger, and Kate learns the hard way about her sister’s worst fears.
Relationships: Beth Kane | Alice & Kate Kane
Series: until every fire is extinguished and every home is rebuilt [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732717
Comments: 9
Kudos: 52





	as fire loves innocence

**Author's Note:**

> This picks up right after the previous fic, as justice loves to sit and watch everything go wrong.
> 
> Enjoy. :)

Kate wakes up to the sounds of a choked scream, a dull thud, and the sight of Alice crumpled in a heap on the floor, limbs tangled in the blanket that she’d wrapped her in and sobbing so hard that it seems like her lungs might burst from the strain of it all. For once, Kate doesn’t hesitate; her body moves on autopilot before her sleep-addled brain can even begin to process the scene in front of her. She slides off of the couch and wraps her arms around Alice in a heartbeat. This is the closest they’ve ever been since that night at the clinic, the night Kate had felt the last breath leave her sister’s too thin, too pale, too devastatingly lifeless body and found herself wondering if she’d made the right choice after all. 

To her surprise, Alice doesn’t pull away. She merely grabs at Kate’s arms with trembling hands as she mutters barely intelligible strings of words between every shuddering breath that she manages to take. “Please, please, _please_ ,” she weeps, and Kate feels hot tears starting to soak into the fabric of her shirt. “Not again, I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I swear I’ll be _good_ -“

Kate thinks she might be sick. Part of her wishes she could go back in time just for the satisfaction of killing Cartwright all over again. The rest of her wishes she could go back even further and be the one to murder his mother too. Screw ethics and morals and Batman’s goddamn no-killing code. Why the hell should Kate have any qualms over ridding the world of a monster that‘d earned his place in hell a thousand times over? 

“Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me here alone,” Alice begs, and Kate doesn’t know what’s worse- having to see all of her sister’s masks crumble into dust, or finally coming face-to-face with every awful thing that they’d been used to conceal. “I can’t do this again, I can’t. I _can’t_.”

Alice cries, and all Kate finds herself able to do is pull her closer, hold her tighter, and hope to hell that she isn’t making things any worse.

“I’m here,” she says. “You’re safe.” Over and over and over until it feels like her heart has managed to crawl up from from her chest to her throat and die there, leaving her choking helplessly on an aching desperation to _fix this_. 

But from the way that Alice continues to shake and plead and whimper, Kate doesn’t think that any of her words can be heard over whatever ghosts are haunting her sister now.

* * *

It takes Alice nearly an hour to fight through the lingering fog of the fear toxin that clouds her senses and forces her nightmares to drag out for far longer than they ever have before. An hour of uncontrollable shaking and crying that results in an almost overwhelming desire to crawl right out of her own skin and off the nearest ledge of suitable height to guarantee a quick and easy end to all of her problems. Wouldn’t that be a neat little way to close out the miserable tale of her life? And yet the whole humiliating ordeal might almost be worth it considering the fact that Kate had dragged her into a fierce embrace after she’d fallen off of the couch in a haze of panic and fear and hadn’t let go for even a second.

It’s weak and silly and stupid of her, of course, considering the fact that just a few weeks ago Kate had chosen to let her die in order to save a sweeter, softer, more sanitized version of herself. And just a week after that Kate had cut her down from Nocturna’s ropes and leaned in close- close enough to touch, even, if Alice’d had the strength to do more than just lay there and listen to her say that damning condemnation. _You should be dead_ , she’d said, and Alice didn’t have it in her to lie and say anything other than _I know, Kate_. _You did everything in your power to make sure of that_. 

It’s weak and silly and stupid but it’s how she feels all the same and Alice loathes how easily she can be swayed back into longing for the return of the closeness that they used to share so effortlessly in their youth. Longing hadn’t freed her from that basement prison. Sentiment hadn’t saved her from learning how to peel skin away from flesh and flesh away from bone and figure out how to put them back together again in the shape of stolen faces. Nostalgia hadn’t kept her from losing every shred of sanity and self to the darkness that she’s been waging war against ever since she was just a little girl being told by a monster in the guise of a man that _this is your home now_ and _don’t cry, you’ll get used to it here_ , right before he’d stepped outside and locked the door to her cell with a twisted parody of a smile on his face.

It’s weak and silly and stupid and yet she’s made no move to fight her way out of the warm, easy comfort that being held by her sister so freely offers. And if she’s being honest- truly, terribly, painfully so- it’s everything that she’s spent the past fifteen years pretending not to crave. 

Anyway, this will probably never happen again, not once Kate remembers that she’s supposed to hate her, to want her dead, to say that she could never _possibly be worth it_ and leave with barely a backwards glance in her direction. So what’s the harm in letting herself indulge in a moment of weakness and warmth and pretending that she might actually be loved if she’s well aware of the fact that it can’t be anything other than a temporary mistake? Unlike little Beth who’d worn her heart on her sleeve until the day it was torn to shreds by the sight of her family moving on with their lives, moving on _without_ her, Alice has always been so very good at pretending.

So she decides to wait. She waits with her cheek pressed against the cotton of Kate’s shirt, worn soft through years of use and now half-ruined by the ceaseless flood of tears she’d cried. She waits while the thumping staccato of her sister’s heart rings in her ears and sinks into her skin like a metronome guiding her through unfamiliar music. She waits for her breathing to even out, for the last of her tremors to fade, and for Kate to remember their roles in this tragedy of a play and push her away all over again.

Alice ends up waiting so long that the steady sound of her sister’s heartbeat pulls her gently back into a sea of oblivion whose waves creep onto the shores of her consciousness so quietly that she barely even realizes she’s drifting back to sleep until it’s far too late for her to resist its pull.

* * *

Alice eventually falls back asleep after her panic subsides, exhaustion evident in the way she goes quiet and still and almost worryingly limp in Kate’s arms like a little rag doll. Whether this was a result of her exposure to fear toxin or merely the byproduct of enduring years of crippling abuse or some horrific combination of both, Kate finds the question haunting her. 

Was this a regular occurrence for her sister, the reason the shadowy bruises around her eyes seemed like a permanent feature of her otherwise flawlessly pale skin? And if it was, if Alice woke up with screams building up in the back of her throat more often than she didn’t, was there anyone who would comfort her until she calmed down? Or would she be left alone and afraid, abandoned to the dark?

Kate thinks back to the clinic, to bloodstained lips and bloodshot eyes and the look of pure heartbreak that had spread across her sister’s face when the truth of her choice became clear. _You don’t even know me_ , she’d cried, and Kate realizes now just how right those words had been and still are.

For all that she knows about Beth, Kate finds that she doesn’t really know anything about Alice at all. She knows her only in the broad strokes, sees an unfinished painting only half filled in. It’s intentional, too- every one of Alice’s idiosyncrasies have been carefully cultivated to keep anyone from ever looking past whatever facade she’s chosen to display. Kate’s seen her sister’s masks slip more over the past few hours than she’d ever seen them falter over the past few weeks and she knows that fear toxin is to blame. 

Yet Alice seems to know Kate just as well as Beth ever had, knows just what to say and do to knock her off-balance and send her stumbling into a nasty fall. Beth had never been so cruel as to push Kate past the same limits that Alice has, though. Beth had been as kind as Alice now was vicious.

Except- 

Alice had saved her, twice. 

Once from Tommy Elliot on a rooftop and again from Nocturna in an abandoned cathedral.

And Alice had saved her again tonight, when she’d taken Cartwright’s death in stride and made all the arrangements to get rid of the body while Kate and their father could barely manage to function in their shock and horror. She’d been the one to come up with a plan, set it into motion, and see it through to completion without any hesitation. 

Even though she’d been dead-eyed and shaky and frighteningly pale from whatever horrors the fear toxin had made her see, Alice had managed to pull herself together enough to think everything through and make sure that the world would never know what had taken place on the floor of Kate’s bar.

In spite of Kate’s repeated rejections, cutting remarks, and finally even choosing to let her die in the place of another, Alice had simply continued to _save her_.

Kate thinks back to the promise that she’d made with their father in his office, so easily tossed aside and forgotten in the wake of their rage over Catherine’s death. Catherine, who had paid to have DNA test results falsified while a little girl was locked in a basement and left to endure eleven years of utter hell. Catherine, who had blown up a bridge in an attempt to cover up her sins by killing the woman who was living proof of her lie instead of simply coming clean and revealing the truth. Catherine, who had been more than content to let Kate think she was crazy for daring to believe that her own twin- her other half- might still be alive. 

Guilt and shame settle like stones in the pit of her stomach. There is so much anger and hurt and pain and betrayal between them but Kate hasn’t let herself properly shoulder the blame for any of it. She’d been so wholeheartedly focused on the idea of getting back the version of Beth that she’d remembered that she’d completely ignored the fact that it was an impossible endeavor from the start. Neither of them are who they’d been fifteen years ago, neither of them are those innocent kids untouched by the horrors of the world around them. And it hadn’t been fair of Kate to expect that version of Beth to still exist after everything that she’d been through.

Change is an inevitability, and yet Kate had staunchly refused to accept it in her own twin sister.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers the words against fine strands of pale blonde hair as she presses a gentle kiss to the top of Alice’s head. “I’ll do better.”

Kate waits until she’s finished maneuvering her still-sleeping sister into bed and tucking her in to continue. “I _promise_ ,” she says softly, quietly, though the words are firm and laced with steely resolve. “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a review, hug the Kane twins.
> 
> All works will be oneshots in this now-AU version of events unless stated otherwise, so please consider subscribing to the series rather than the individual works if you want to see what happens next. :D
> 
> Feel free to yell at me on tumblr: @rudderless-in-an-ocean-of-stars or, since I’m rarely there these days, yell at me on Instagram: @lavender.beth where I also post Batwoman memes and edits. :)


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